Spring is Coming!

It has really sneaked up on us, but I think spring is finally coming. The last couple of days, when out walking, I suddenly realized that there were blossoms on some of the trees! I was so excited. Maybe the warmer weather of the past few days isn't a fluke. I am definitely ready for spring!

Harmonica anyone?

With Eric leaving me for a few days at a time for his little business trips, I am forced to find my own entertainment. Today, the winner was...(and they absolutely blew me away)...an all harmonica ensemble. You got it. About 25ish people playing harmonicas of all sizes. It was such a different, funny, and odd sight. But they were actually really good!

Heidi, I thought of you- if you were in China, this would be the group for you! :)

Lujaizui, Shanghai, China...

Where we live!

Qixia Lu, a street much like other Chinese communities, and we love it. Lots of small, tasty food places, fruit stands, veggies markets,and laundry hanging outside of everyone's window. But best of all, it is only a less-than ten minute walk to Eric's work!

He works in the second building from the right- with the 'M' on the side- the China Merchants Tower.

Join me as we walk Eric to work. (Isn't that great that I can do that?! I am so glad it is so close- no long commutes for Eric through crazy Shanghai rush hour.)
First we walk out to our street. It doesn't even feel like we are minutes away from the financial center of Shanghai.

Walk a few hundred yards though and this is what we see:





I like this picture. It shows how the little communities go right up next to the skyscrapers. We live just one street down from here.

Eric's first business trip

Eric left me this morning for his first business trip with the company that he is interning for. I admit that I have been dreading this because the planned trip was to be about 2 and 1/2 weeks long- which seemed like an eternity. But yesterday Eric's bosses changed their mind and the trip is being broken up into three sections with short 1-2 day long returns to Shanghai in between. So now instead of 17 days it is only 4 days until I get to see Eric again!

Here is a little map that Eric put together of where he will be traveling. Nothing too far away but he is excited to see more of China. Which he will definitely get to do with this internship- they told him that he should expect to be traveling about a third of the time.



After talking with people at church though, I feel like I shouldn't complain. Our ward is full of businessmen who are always gone traveling. When I told one guy about Eric's 2 1/2 week trip he said, 'Oh, so a short one, yeah?' And another lady's husband is gone 4 days, home for 2, pretty consistently. A good number of the sisters in Relief Society mentioned their husbands being gone on business today.

Right now 4 days is sounding pretty darn good. No complaining here.

Day Eight – Hiking in Xingping

Friday 22 January 2010
8:30am Hike to Snail Hill
10:30am Hike to the top of Laozhai Hill
11:30am Eat Guilin Noodles with school kids in Xingping
12:30pm Hike to spot of the image on the back of China’s 20 yuan bill
1:15pm Continue hiking to Nine Horse Fresco Hill
2:30pm Catch a bamboo raft back to Xingping (very cold)
3:15pm Attempt to warm up by the fire in our hostel
4:00pm Give up, start on our four hour trek to the Guilin airport
12:15am Finally board delayed plane back to Nanjing
3:30am Throw down our bags and hit the sack as we say goodbye to a trip well planned

The view from the roof-top of our hostel:



Kiersten: As we headed out that day, I admit that I was a little apprehensive. After our experience of being cold and wet the day before, I didn't really want to have that happen again. But the whole day was absolutely wonderful! And we were able to hold off becoming cold and miserable until we had seen everything we wanted to. As we climbed to the top of a nearby karst mountain that morning and then looked over Xingping and the Li river, I was again struck with how incredibly beautiful it all was. I felt awed and lucky to be able to be there and see it all. What a wonderful trip.

At the start of the hike up Lao Zhai Shan (the nearby karst mountain). Hiking up steep slippery stone steps in the rain might not be the best idea, but we made it!

From the top:


Eric: The hills around Xingping were my favorite. It was still raining, but we weren’t willing to pass up the opportunity to see more of karst mountain beauty. Our trip to and back from Snail Hill went quite well, and I was quite excited to find that in the rock bed along the path there were ironically quite a few snail shells to be found. Much to Kiersten’s amusement, I couldn’t help but stop and sift through the rocks to find the best ones. The day went by wonderfully, but a few minutes into our boat ride back to Xingping, the wetness that had accumulated on our clothes throughout the day began to be more apparent. As we reached our hostel, we were forced to take a break and try to warm ourselves by hot coals pulled from the furnace. It didn’t work, however, and the whole way to the airport both Kiersten and I were wondering if we had gone too far with our adventure. The cold and the wet was painful, to say the least. Would we do it again? If you were to ask me on the bus, I’d have said no, but ask me at any other time, and I’d say definitely.

I loved our trip. From Hong Kong to the Longji Rice Terraces to Yangshuo to Xingping, Kiersten and I had a wonderful time. Things could hardly have gone better.

Taking the little ferry across the river.



Snail Hill. It really does look like a snail shell, doesn't it?

Eric looking for snail shells with Snail Hill in the background. He got so excited by them. He reminded me of his Grandma Matthews- I have almost the exact same picture of her looking for shells when we went to visit them in Washington. Like grandma, like grandson.

Not the best picture and we weren't at quite the right angle, but the is the same view that is depicted on the 20 RMB banknote. (Chinese currency) We thought that was neat.



Can you see the little man on the raft? I love this picture.


This particular mountain is called Nine Horse Fresco Hill. The whitish areas are supposed to look like horses. You have to look really hard, and even then they still don't look too much like horses.

Our raft-ride back to Xingping.

Day Seven – Shivering cold, but still loving it

Note: I know this was already almost a month ago but I already had these posts ready to go and I wanted to get the rest of the trip posted- mostly because we just love looking at these amazing pictures :).

Thursday 21 January 2010

9:00am Bike ride in heavy rain through countryside (trying to make it to Dragon Bridge again)
10:30am Realization that our ponchos were not keeping us dry at all, and that we were still less than half way to Dragon Bridge
10:40am Ride back to Yangshuo in rain
12:00pm Eat lunch while shivering from being soaked wet
2:00pm Take a bus with friends Thomas and Jessica and Aaron and Courtney to nearby town of Fuli
2:30pm Walk around Fuli and buy hand-painted Chinese fan (our first souvenir)
4:30pm Travel back to Yanshuo
5:30pm Take a bus to small town of Xingping, where we would spend the night



Eric: Note to self—don’t try adventurous bike rides in cold rain with only a five kuai poncho to keep yourself warm, especially when you only brought one pair of pants with you. That morning ride was beautiful, but it sure left us shivering for the rest of the day. We knew it was probably going to rain our last couple of days in the area, but somehow we still thought that we were going to do everything the same as if it was dry. As can be seen from the itinerary above, though, that supposition did not last more than an hour and a half. We were therefore happy, then, when our friends from Nanjing walked into the same restaurant as we were finishing our lunch. After a few minutes of looking at the map, we decided we would take a bus to Fuli, where we could safely walk around with umbrellas and enjoy the beauty around us while still staying dry. We did not plan on buying a fan there, although Fuli is famous throughout China for its hand-painted fans. How could we say no, though, after we took a look around the shop of one gifted family and hear the amazing prices they were offering them for. We left with a fan, and we were very happy about it.

Kiersten: Although our little bike ride mostly backfired, that first half hour of it was amazing. I love rain- running in rain is my favorite way to run- and the first part of the bike ride felt like that. Then it got wet, very wet, and then very cold. I tried being toughing it out- when every single one of the flimsy buttons on my also very flimsy poncho broke, I just tied little knots all the way down the front in an attempt to keep it together. I know I looked awfully silly but hey, if it gave me at least 10 more minutes out there before giving up, it was worth it. The route we took for our bike ride was beautiful. Flat- not hilly like the day before (that was killer!) and we were surrounded by the majestic karst mountains on every side.

The little town of Fuli.

Some our friends who we went with.

The fan store we visited- 'Peng Family Fan Technique Factory'

Learning how to make the fans!

This is the one we bought.


Walking around the town some more: